The invention relates to improvements to equipment of the type for manipulating, that is to say for mounting and dismounting, devices such as packings, on the sea bed, particularly resilient packings to be provided at the base of platforms or articulated columns for oil installations, as described, in particular, in the Applicant's French Pat. No. 1,519,891.
Such platforms, particularly those used as loading columns, production columns or burn-off columns, comprise at the base, on the sea bed, a cardan joint to which there lead pipelines adapted to be connected to one or more conduits extending along the column, the pipelines and conduits being intended for the circulation of liquids (petroleum) or gas.
In particular, it appears to be an advantage to cause the fluids to pass, at the position of the junction, through the hollow shafts and bearings of the cardan head, but in order to make allowance for the slight relative angular displacements of the shafts, it is then necessary to provide, between the cardan and the pipelines or conduits leading thereto, deformable packings adapted to be stressed in torsion, these torsion packings comprising, in particular, a stack of rubber rings and metallic rings in accordance with the Applicant's French Pat. No. 2,251,237, which stack is introduced, in the precompressed state, between flanges or abutments respectively rigidly connected to the elements to be united, and is then relaxed in such a manner as to come to bear, while still being compressed, against said abutments.